Financial firm may dismiss 20 per cent of workforce

by Paul Lucas29 Mar 2016

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Financial firm may dismiss 20 per cent of workforce

Workers at the Toronto offices of financial company Nomura Holdings Inc. may be a little uneasy today as news broke about the company looking to potentially slash 20 per cent of its North American workforce.

According to Bloomberg, people with knowledge about the situation believe that the company is on the verge of shrinking its operations following a trading slump.

While decisions are not yet final, one senior manager reportedly told Bloomberg that reductions could even extend to 30 per cent of staff in the region as Japan’s largest brokerage declined to comment on the situation.

If the company does choose to reduce its workforce it would be a notable reversal from its plans outlined in December when chief executive officer Koji Nagai stated that the firm planned to increase its staff in North America despite some financial losses. However, a slump in commodity prices, coupled with low interest rates and market swings, seem to have hit the company further. Meanwhile, several rival companies have made job cuts of their own, including Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and Bank of America.

Nomura has posted six successive pre-tax losses in the Americas. In fact the company hasn’t made a profit outside its native Japan since the financial year ending March, 2010. The company has also undertaken a host of expansions and pullbacks outside Japan in recent years – buying Lehman Brothers’ Asian and European operations in 2008 only to then pare back operations later.